Wednesday, 15 December 2010

2010: A Review of the Year in Books and Comics; 2. A Bloody Great List

Lists. Everybody loves lists. Checklists, playlists, shopping lists. A life without lists is a life without order. Or something. And around this time of year, magazines and websites and telly shows and radio shows are heaving with lists: lists of books, lists of albums, lists of singles, lists of hair, lists of mice... you name it. So why should Existential Ennui's weirdly outdated, hermetically sealed 2010 Review of the Year in Books and Comics be any different? Answer: it shouldn't. Here, then, is a bloody great list – as in a long list, but also, as it happens, a fairly great one, too – of the books wot I done read this year, in the order wot I done read them. I posted the first half of it back in July, by which point I was halfway through Justin Cronin's The Passage (as recommended to me by Book Glutton). But I'd actually forgotten to include the graphic novels I'd read too, an oversight I've now corrected. Let's have a look at the thing, and then reconvene afterwards for a chat, shall we?

The Green Man by Kingsley Amis

Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay

Casino Royale by Ian Fleming

Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith

Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming

The Hacienda: or How Not to Run a Club by Peter Hook

Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane

The Way Home by George Pelecanos

The Wrong Side of the Sky by Gavin Lyall

Point Blank by Richard Stark

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

Hellblazer: Pandemonium by Jamie Delano and Jock

The Man with the Getaway Face by Richard Stark

Moonraker by Ian Fleming

Killy by Donald Westlake

The Outfit by Richard Stark

The Mourner by Richard Stark

The Score by Richard Stark

The Jugger by Richard Stark

The Split by Richard Stark

The Handle by Richard Stark

The Blunderer by Patricia Highsmith

Weathercraft by Jim Woodring

The Most Dangerous Game by Gavin Lyall

The Damsel by Richard Stark

A God Somewhere by John Arcudi, Peter Snejbjerg and Bjarne Hansen

The Rare Coin Score by Richard Stark

The Hot Rock by Donald Westlake

The Hot Rock by LAX

Dig My Grave Deep by Peter Rabe

Modesty Blaise by Peter O'Donnell

Wilson by Dan Clowes

The Green Eagle Score by Richard Stark

The Glass Cell by Patricia Highsmith

The Passage by Justin Cronin

The Black Ice Score by Richard Stark

Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd

Concrete Island by J. G. Ballard

Bank Shot by Donald Westlake

Dexterby Design by Jeff Lindsay

The Sour Lemon Score by Richard Stark

The Bourne Identity by Robert Ludlum

The Secret Servant by Gavin LyallWerewolvesof Montpellier by Jason

The Dame by Richard Stark

Deadly Edge by Richard Stark

Blacklands by Belinda Bauer

Richard Stark’s Parker: The Outfit by Darwyn Cooke

Diamonds are Forever by Ian Fleming

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carre

The Honourable Scoolboy by John le Carre

Spy in the Vodka/The Cold War Swap by Ross Thomas

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

A Drink Before the War by Dennis Lehane

Darkness, Take My Hand by Dennis Lehane

The Blackbird by Richard Stark

The ACME Novelty Library #20: Lint by Chris Ware

The Porkchoppers by Ross Thomas

Chinaman’s Chance by Ross Thomas

Slayground by Richard Stark

The Playwright by Eddie Campbell and Darren Whitte

Cast a Yellow Shadow by Ross ThomasWhat Became of Jane Austen? by Kingsley Amis

The Naked Runner by Francis Clifford

The Anatomy of Ghosts by Andrew Taylor (still reading)

The Out is Death by Peter Rabe (still reading)

Colonel Sun by Robert Markham (still reading)

Adventures on the High Teas by Stuart Maconie (still reading)

I make that sixty-five done, dusted, read and shelved books and graphic novels, with a further four books still in progress. Hopefully I'll have a couple of those finished by the end of the year, and maybe a couple more besides. I suspect Olman – currently on his seventieth book of the year – will still beat me, but even so: not a bad effort.

Breaking the list down a bit, out of all those books, just sixteen could be classed as relatively 'new' – i.e. published in the last year or two – and out of those, nine are graphic novels, and three are non-fiction. Which means, if my maths is correct, I read just four relatively new novels this year – and indeed one of those I'm still reading. The remaining fifty-three books on the list – all but one of them novels – were all first published between five and seventy years ago. And out of those, over a third were written by Donald E. Westlake. I guess that shouldn't really come as a surprise, given the overwhelmingly Westlake-centric nature of Existential Ennui throughout the year, but even so: that's still an impressive percentage. No other author even approaches Westlake's mighty total of twenty books; I think Ross Thomas comes closest with four. It really was the Year of Westlake.

All being well I'll be revisiting this list in a subsequent 2010 Review of the Year post to see if I can work out which, in my estimation, was the best book I read all year. In fact, I wonder if another list might be appropriate... a top twenty, perhaps? One to ponder there. Either way, I'll update it before the year's out to see what the final tally is. Because I ain't done yet. Not by a long chalk. Watch out, Olman. I'm coming up fast from behind. Er, so to speak.

Wow, dude! Silent assassin. I'm such an obsessive geek that I actually copied and pasted your list into a spreadsheet to get the count. It was only after doing that (and marvelling at the amount) that I got to the next sentence where you actually did the work for your readers.

In any case, a very impressive reading list this year. That is pretty cool that you basically read almost the entire Stark ouevre in a single year. I'm curious if you have some new insight or perspective on Westlake as a writer now?

I'm not sure actually, beyond what I've already written in the various Parker Progress Reports. And even in those I don't know if I had any new insights. One thing I think I have begun to appreciate more are the games Westlake played to keep himself interested, like trying out different sorts of genre novel in the Grofield books, or the structural games in the Parkers, seeing what he could do within that four act frame. But all that stuff's been written about before I think. I still think I'll take up Book Glutton's suggestion when I've read a couple more Dortmunders to do a compare/contrast between Parker and Dortmunder.